The April 2019 General Business Meeting of the Washington State 21st Legislative District Democratic Party Organization took place on April 17, 2019, at the Edmonds Center for the Arts.

The meeting came to order at 7:02 PM. It opened with a flag salute.

Acceptance of the Minutes from the Last Meeting
The first order of business was the acceptance of the minutes from the last general business meeting, which was held on March 20, 2019. The minutes were accepted without objection. They can be found here:
https://21dems.org/march-2019-general-business-meeting-minutes/

Adoption of the Agenda
The next order of business was to adopt the agenda for the current meeting. Certain amendments were suggested by Chair Sharon Holt, to better accommodate expected special guests for the evening: specifically, the Old Business, which in the prepared agenda was placed after New Business, would be moved forward and addressed first.

There was also a motion to remove New Business, sections 9.2 and 9.3, from the agenda, on the basis that insufficient notice was given regarding those items; however, that motion was not seconded, and therefore failed.

The was a motion to adopt the agenda as amended by the Chair, and it was seconded. The agenda as amended was adopted without objection.

The original version of the agenda (without amendment) can be found here:
https://21dems.org/april-17-2019-agenda/

Guest Speakers
Guest speakers for the meeting included several candidates for county and municipal offices, who spoke in favor of their own candidacy and requested endorsement when appropriate. The candidates who spoke were Garth Fell (candidate for Snohomish County Auditor), Jenna Nand (candidate for Edmonds City Concil), Susan Paine (candidate for Edmonds City Council), Megan Dunn (candidate for Snohomish County Council), and Louis Harris (candidate for Snohomish County Council).

Our first featured speaker of the evening was Marcia Stedman, a representative of Health Care for All Washington (HCFA-WA). She spoke on pending legislation (HB 1104) which, among other things, would set up a work group to explore how to guarantee health care coverage for all residents of Washington State.
In addition, she explained the difference between the organizations HCFA-WA and Whole Washington, which have similar goals but different methods of achieving them. HCFA-WA has been around longer, and prefers to work through the legislative process, where as Whole Washington is a newer organization that prefers to work through the popular initiative process. The websites of both organizations are below.
https://www.healthcareforallwa.org/
https://wholewashington.org/

Our second featured speaker was Congressman Rick Larsen, who represents Washington’s 2nd Congressional District, which overlaps with the 21st Legislative District. Congressman Larsen spoke about recent and future actions by the US House of Representatives. He paid particularly close attention to the House Aviation Subcommittee, of which he is Chair, and which is involved in critical oversight actions regarding the Boeing 737-MAX airplane design, which has been implicated in two tragic airline crashes over the past few months.
(Congressman Larsen actually spoke after the Officers’ Reports, but is listed here under Guest Speakers for ease of reading)

Officers’ Reports

First Vice Chair Al Apodaca read the balances of the organization’s accounts, since Treasurer David Chan is out of the country.
Al’s report as First Vice Chair can be read here: https://21dems.org/first-vice-chair-and-pco-coordinator-reports-apr-2019/

County Committeewoman Rose Andrew’s report from the most recent Snohomish County Committee meeting can be read here:
https://21dems.org/snohomish-county-march-2019-report-continued/
County Committeeman Joel Ware IV added that the County is funding the Rural and Agricultural Caucus.

State Committeewoman Simone Gomes attended a meeting of the Latino Caucus. The Latino Caucus is asking for financial support, and is ready to work with anyone who wants to know more about them.
State Committeeman Shaun Olsen made a brief report of the most recent Washington State Democrats meeting. The State Committee’s official summary of that meeting can be read here: https://21dems.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/FINAL-April-State-Committee-Meeting-Actions.pdf?x72192

Second Vice-Chair Niko Battle also attended the Washington State Democrats meeting, since he is a State Committeeman from the Snohomish County Democrats. He gave a brief summary of that meeting, and also reminded the 21st LD that we have yet to appoint a liaison to the Snohomish County Young Democrats.

Clare Van Hollebeke, Chaire of the Endorsement Committee, brought the membership up to speed on recent developments of that committee, including recent votes to name Neil Shafer-Ross Vice-Chair of the committee, and to adopt a rule that committee members must recuse themselves from voting on any race where they may have a conflict of interest.

Old Business
The meeting went into Executive Session, to discuss a matter of internal discipline.

New Business

Because we have migrated our website to a new server, under our exclusive control, it is now necessary to pay the sum of $33 a month to maintain the website. There was a motion to authorize this sum for that purpose. It was seconded. There was no debate. The motion was passed.

There was a motion to amend the bylaws top make two changes: Robert’s Rules of Order will no longer be our only mechanism for disciplinary action, and the organization will adopt full reporting with the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission. Because this is a bylaws amendment, only PCOs are eligible to vote. There was no debate. The motion passed unanimously.

There was a motion to adopt a special rule of order that the Code of Conduct Disciplinary Procedures will be our preferred disciplinary procedures, in preference to Robert’s Rules (which we still have the option of using). Information was shared regarding the new Code, but there was no debate. The motion was passed unanimously.

There was a motion to postpone indefinitely the agenda item “PCO Training,” which was item 11 on the posted agenda. The motion was seconded. There was no debate. The Motion passed unanimously.

Adjournment
There was a motion to adjourn. The meeting was adjourned at 9:16 PM.